Providing Incisive Commentary on the Giants and the NFL

Last Monday night, the Giants faced the perfect storm of their incompetent offensive line, nonexistent run game and the boneheaded, predictable play calling of McAdoo. For the past five years, I have been saying that the Giants offensive line has no depth. Every year, they lose at least three linemen for four to six weeks plus, and Jerry “Reach” has done nothing to address the problem.

He said in the offseason the line is still young and it will come around. He cited Flowers and Hart as the two to come around. He is still holding on to them because he drafted Flowers in the first round and he won’t admit that he is a BUST. Ansah toyed with him like a cat playing with a mouse from the field. It was embarrassing. McAdoo is a bad coach because he never makes adjustments! He is just like Chip Kelly who ran a system that didn’t work in the NFL. He was run out of the league for not making adjustments. He would go three and out quickly and leave the defense on the fields forever. After Ben saw Flowers getting beat like a drum, he had to add another TE, like Ellison or another running back to double Ansah. Instead, he just let him get beat time after time.

Jerry “Reach” addressed the defense last year after he left the team devoid of talent since their last Super Bowl win. This was the year to address the OL and the running backs. The running backs are a joke. Perkins was a fifth-round pick, and he is not a real lead back. Darkwa was a backup, but he is the only short-yardage back. Vereen is a third down pass-catching back who they have just started to use in his third year here. Because of the horrible line play, the Giants are dead last in rushing in the NFL at 48.5 yards per game! This is nothing new as the Giants have been at the bottom of the rushing metrics since 2011. No problem, Jerry ‘Reach” is not concerned.

On paper the Giants have the best receiving line-up they have ever had. Again, due to the bad line play, they are not effective. The Giants have not scored more than 19 points in the last eight games, averaging 13 points per game. They have not scored 30 points in the last 19 games. McAdoo is supposed to be the “Quarterback Whisperer,” coming from being the coordinator for the great Aaron Rodgers. Hey Ben! How about in the first series you try and get Marshall in the game by throwing a short, high-percentage crossing route, so he can get some confidence instead of having two measly catches in two games.

Looking at this week’s game, it is a must-win for the Giants. If they lose, their season is flushed down the toilet. Since 1990, only three teams, or two percent, have ever made the playoffs after going 0-3. The first note is that Zach Ertz, Eagles TE, will have eight catches for 90+ yards and at least 1 touchdown. Last week, Lions’ TE Eric Ebron had five catches and a touchdown. There was an Amber Alert for missing-in-action Ebron, since he came into the league three years ago as a top-10 draft pick. They found him at Met Life Stadium where all TEs are open over the middle.

For the Giants to be successful, Eli with have to crank up the passing game. The Giants are not going to run against the Eagles wide-nine front with their OL that cannot block. The Eagles have had injuries in their secondary. The line will have to get Eli enough time to throw deeper than the check downs to Vereen. Eli is getting jumpy from all the pressure so far. They have to sustain some drives. They cannot be 33% again this week on third-down conversions. The strong Giants defense is wearing down because they were on the field 35 minutes in the first game and 32 minutes against the Lions. They gave up 137 rushing yards to Dallas and 148 rushing yards to the Lions. These numbers were unheard of last year.

Unfortunately for the Eagles, they cannot run the ball either. Blount, Smallwood and Sproles have not done much. Pederson did not want Wentz to throw as much as last year, but guess what, because of their running game, they are throwing more. Wentz threw for over 300 yards and two TDs in both games so far. Wentz has at least four viable passing targets now. Jeffrey will have a big day if Jenkins is out again. Special teams will be huge for the Giants. The punt return they gave up against the Lions broke their back as they were only down one TD.

The Giants are coming off a short week and need to circle the wagons. Maybe, as it states in “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu, when your back is against the wall and it is fight to the death time because of the circumstances, those armies perform the best and achieve the unattainable. The best example is the 300 Spartans who held off tens of thousands of hoards. So, for the Giants to avoid facing playoff elimination on Sunday, they need to pull out the extreme effort on the road, even though the OL is uber bad, and McAdoo is not smart enough to diversify the offense away from 96% 11 personnel and three wide. I’ll call this an Eagles win, 24-14. Hopefully this becomes the start of the end for McAdoo and Jerry “Reach”. They will have to win 9-10 out of the next 13!

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